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Just bought a Tascam 464 and need advice

I just bought this Tascam 464 and it came with a cassette tape in it and cue pedal and some rca cables, all for $20, so I figured I'd give it a try. It would rewind and ff but not play so I replaced the belt and now it seems fine. The tape has a recording of someone singing and playing on it but is very muffled or light, volume up all the way it's noisy and you can barely hear it. So I figure I need to get a demagnetizer and alcohol and clean and demagnetize. Anything else I should do to this unit? I'm going to get a couple new cassettes to record on, any recommendation on what kind of cassettes to get and where is a good place to get them?

Cleaning isn't all that tuff, Just don't use powerful chems ( and you don't really need any chems) and clean cotton. You don't want any residue left in the tape path. You can pull a loop out of the cassette and see if it is drawn to and sticks to metal parts in the tape path

It's not just the thickness, but the mass that has be pulled through. So, quality of the cassette and less tape. I'm fine with 45=min a side, but I'm not just recording my music, but records and CD, etc.. I use short lengths on my open reel for my music. 5 and 7-inch reels instead of 10-inch reels. I think 5-inch gives me ?? 17 minutes at 15ips. Three takes ? And not a lot of FF and REW to do.